Concept of self in Indic philosophy; based on Mahābhārata, Hindu epic.

Should the regulation of production and distribution in a socialist society be based on the law of value? In this article we ask (1) Is this question not based on an ontological understanding of labour, on a rational and therefore conceptual understanding of abstract labour and, ultimately, a transhistorical understanding of value and the so-called ‘law of value’?; (2) is it not precisely this deception and power of the fetishism of commodities that, by eternalising value and the ‘law of value’, (...) limits the horizon and perspective of ‘realistic politics’ (Realpolitik)?; and (3) whether this question does not treat socialism as a political situation where the solution to its ‘economic’ problem is unrelated to its very identity? In order to answer these questions, we provide a novel understanding of Marx’s fundamental category of value, its substance, form and magnitude, with the help of the German expression Formgehalt, translated as form-content. (shrink)

Millions of children in conflict-affected countries are deprived of their fundamental rights to education. Using the qualitative exploratory research method, this study aims to explore ways of providing education to such children, and to identify the challenges facing their implementation. It also presents two short case studies conducted on Palestinian and Syrian refugees residing in Malaysia to explore their perceptions towards their education in their current situation and future orientation. The results show that despite the educational programmes initiated by various (...) organizations, the affected community continue to face numerous political, financial, psychological, economic, administrative, or institutional challenges. The analysis of the interviews data revealed several categories and themes, among them related to the participants’ current situation, educational needs, roles of different members of the community involved, and the challenges. The study recommends increasing efforts to meet the educational demands of the huge number of children out of schools. (shrink)

The data mining field in computer science specializes in extracting implicit information that is distributed across the stored data records and/or exists as associations among groups of records. Criminal databases contain information on the crimes themselves, the offenders, the victims as well as the vehicles that were involved in the crime. Among these records lie groups of crimes that can be attributed to serial criminals who are responsible for multiple criminal offenses and usually exhibit patterns in their operations, by specializing (...) in a particular crime category (i.e., rape, murder, robbery, etc.), and applying a specific method for implementing their crimes. Discovering serial criminal patterns in crime databases is, in general, a clustering activity in the area of data mining that is concerned with detecting trends in the data by classifying and grouping similar records. In this paper, we report on the different statistical and neural network approaches to the clustering problem in data mining in general, and as it applies to our crime domain in particular. We discuss our approach of using a cascaded network of Kohonen neural networks followed by heuristic processing of the networks outputs that best simulated the experts in the field. We address the issues in this project and the reasoning behind this approach, including: the choice of neural networks, in general, over statistical algorithms as the main tool, and the use of Kohonen networks in particular, the choice for the cascaded approach instead of the direct approach, and the choice of a heuristics subsystem as a back-end subsystem to the neural networks. We also report on the advantages of this approach over both the traditional approach of using a single neural network to accommodate all the attributes, and that of applying a single clustering algorithm on all the data attributes. (shrink)

El presente artículo ofrece una traducción anotada del _Tratado acerca de las reglas del arte de los poetas_ (_Qawānīn fī ṣināʿat al-_ _šuʿarāʾ_) de Abū Naṣr al-Fārābī. Acompañamos esta traducción de una introducción dividida en tres partes. En primer lugar, se ofrece un contexto general acerca del lugar del _Qawānīn_ en la obra de al-Fārābī y en la tradición filosófica árabe. En segundo, se plantea una posible división temática del texto. Y finalmente, en tercer lugar, se especifican las peculiaridades de (...) la traducción, referente al texto tomado como base y las principales decisiones de traducción. (shrink)

On the contribution of Akalaṅkadeva, 8th cent, Jaina logician; reserach papers presented in national seminar.

On the doctrine of recognition (Patyabhijñā philosophy) in Kashmir Saivism.

El presente artículo se centra en explorar una cuestión fundamental del pensamiento de al-Fārābī, específicamente su comprensión de la potencia de la poesía y su papel político y social en el contexto del mundo árabe clásico. La lectura de este filósofo implica una reinterpretación innovadora de la Poética y la Retórica de Aristóteles, destacando el carácter productivo de la imaginación en términos de evocación de imágenes y creación de semejanzas. Se explora, asimismo, la influencia de la filosofía de al-Fārābī en (...) otros filósofos árabes e islámicos, como Avicena y Averroes, quienes se convirtieron en principales referentes en la reivindicación de la filosofía en este contexto cultural. (shrink)

This paper argues that existing food security and food sovereignty approaches are inadequate to fully understand contradictory human development, nutrition, and productivity trends in Nepalese small-scale agriculture. In an attempt to bridge this gap, we developed a new food wellbeing approach that combines insights from food security, food sovereignty, and social wellbeing perspectives. We used the approach to frame 65 semi-structured interviews in a cluster of villages in Kaski district in the mid-hills of Nepal on various aspects of food security, (...) agriculture, off-farm livelihood opportunities, and women’s wellbeing. Our results indicate that context-specific subjective and social relational factors highlighted by the food wellbeing approach are key to understanding a paradox of increased food security, yet decreasing sustainability of small-scale agriculture. Increased levels of male out-migration and opportunities for local off-farm work have increased local capacity to purchase food. The positive consequences for food security are indicated by evidence that households with non-farm income sources had better food sufficiency, absorption capacity, nutritional quality, and stability of food supply. These off-farm employment opportunities have also led to the greater involvement of low caste groups and women in small-scale agriculture. This has been empowering for both groups and led to an increase in wellbeing, particularly for those women who have become de facto heads of household. Yet, small landholdings, persistent patterns of unequal and absentee land ownership, sharecropping, women’s overwork, and the aspirations of low caste farmers and women away from agriculture are simultaneously driving the erosion of local small-scale agricultural productivity and ecological sustainability. (shrink)

One of the most important rights of the child organized by Islamic law is the right of custody, and th performance of this right is shared between the spouses in the event of marriage. But if the marriage ends and the family contact is dissolved, the first to take custody of the child is his mother, unless there is an emergency that her right to so is waived. If the custody period ends, the rivalry between the parents intensifies, both of (...) which want to take the child to his side. Then who decides the fate of the child in this period and does his choice have a role in resolving the dispute. And what if he chooses him together or the child chooses someone else or refrain from the child's choice to keep the child with him. This research comes to answer these and other questions? by speaking briefly about the legality of custody and it's general principles. And then the scholar sayings that the child has the right to choose between his parents at the end of custody period, to give their evidence, to discuss them, to weigh these statements, and to make a statement that is applicable in most famous personal status laws in the Arab countries. (shrink)

Policy Interaction Graph Analysis is a Host-based Intrusion Detection tool that uses Linux MAC Mandatory access control policy to build the licit information flow graph and uses a detection policy defined by the administrator to extract illicit behaviour from the graph. The main limitation of this tool is the generation of a huge signature base of illicit behaviours; hence, this leads to the use of huge memory space to store it. Our primary goal in this article is to reduce this (...) memory space while keeping the tool’s efficiency in terms of intrusion detection rate and false generated alarms. First, the interactions between the two nodes of the graph were grouped into a single interaction. The notion of equivalence class was used to classify the paths in the graph and was compressed by using a genetic algorithm. Such an approach showed its efficiency compared to the approach proposed by Pierre Clairet, by which the detection rate obtained was 99.9%, and no false-positive with a compression rate of illicit behaviour signature database reached 99.44%. Having these results is one of the critical aspects of realizing successful host-based intrusion detection systems. (shrink)

The article investigates the political cartoon construction of two major `players' on the contemporary political stage, and the semio-linguistic and visual rhetorical tools used to achieve this construction, through an analysis of semiotic-discursive aspects of a small corpus of political cartoons in English and Arabic, all about the two `players' — George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden — in the aftermath of 9/11 and within the ongoing `war on terror', followed by a more detailed analysis of two political cartoon (...) texts from the corpus — one in Arabic about Bush and the other in English about bin Laden. A rationale for the combination of semiotics and critical discourse analysis and a discussion of the nature and functions of political cartoon are provided. These are followed by a review of the relevant literature with a focus on political cartoons. The analysis, drawing upon the `dispositive' model and the incongruity theory of humor, addresses the verbal and visual aspects of the cartoons, instances of blending, incongruity and visual metaphors therein. Some major notions in CDA, for example Van Dijk's ideological square and Chilton's legitimation and proximization, are also utilized in examining the sample cartoons. The detailed analysis of the two cartoons elaborates on the salient features and generic aspects of the sample, specifically on incongruity, blending and visual metaphor, toward an understanding of the messages of the cartoons, the tools used to convey these messages and how they contribute to the ongoing war of ideological misrepresentation. (shrink)

Advances in science and technology have allowed for incredible improvements in healthcare. Additionally, the digital revolution in healthcare provides new ways of collecting and storing large volum...

I wish to comment upon Mr. Hendel's suggestion along two lines: 1) the feasibility of Hume's solution; and 2) the implications of empiricism for man's freedom as knower and agent. Of course, Hume's skepticism did draw the "sting out of physical necessity and made it harmless," as Hendel indicates. But the force of this skepticism was also to impugn reason--or reasoning--and this the philosophes were unwilling to countenance. That man was an unknowable factor in an equally unknowable universe did not (...) fit in with their notion of a proper fruit of the philosophical enterprise. And though they were caught between the demands of the moral life and the persuasion of the scientific world view, their belief, that they should stick with the problem of talking about man and his world in the same categories without being skeptical about either, was sound. They must have felt that skepticism was a relatively easy and simple expedient, and a position incompatible with that of scientific naturalism. (shrink)

IN his article, "Decision and Existence," Newton P. Stallknecht suggests that the insight of the existentialist should be brought to bear on the traditional problem of characterizing existence. In particular, he is concerned to show how the philosophy of Leibniz involves a mode of thinking which has "failed to apprehend the true quality of existence." Because the "extreme 'essentialism' of Leibniz's theology stands... in contrast with his keen sense of the individual and the spontaneous," this philosophy, the author contends, should (...) appeal to, and fascinate, the student of existentialism. Let us note that two questions are involved in the issue as presented by Mr. Stallknecht. (shrink)

Freedom of association for trade union has been generally accepted as part of basic human rights in Islam. Freedom of association, which include the right to join and participate in trade union activities, can be susceptible to disputes between employers and employees as well as trade unions. Islam provides freedom of association in labour relations and also mechanisms to settle disputes pertaining to such freedom. Conciliation (sulh) and arbitration (tahkim) are both used methods in the inception of Islam, which have (...) similarities with the modern sense. We shall discuss in this article the right to dispute resolution between employers and trade unions in the context of freedom of association in labour relations as based on Shari’ah law and using modern legal systems of Islamic countries such as Iran, Malaysia and Saudi Arabia as examples. (shrink)

Business performance is traditionally viewed from the one-dimensional financial angle. This paper develops a new approach that links performance to the ethical vision of Islam based on maqasid al-shari’ah . The approach involves a Pentagon-shaped performance scheme structure via five pillars, namely wealth, posterity, intellect, faith, and human self. Such a scheme ensures that any firm or organization can ethically contribute to the promotion of human welfare, prevent corruption, and enhance social and economic stability and not merely maximize its own (...) performance in terms of its financial return. A quantitative measure of ethical performance is developed. It surprisingly shows that a firm or organization following only the financial aspect at the expense of the others performs poorly. This paper discusses further the practical instances of the quantitative measurement of the ethical aspects of the system taken at an aggregate level. (shrink)

The nature of Self is ever-blissful, yet we feel constant pains and sufferings in the world. Each one of us is forced to face the worldly happenings in every station of our life. These sufferings cannot end without going to their root cause and finding a solution for it. The cause of these sufferings, as put by most of the schools of Indian Philosophy, is ignorance about the nature of Self that results in bondage. All the schools of Indian Philosophy, (...) except the Cārvāka, hold that ignorance is the cause of bondage and knowledge begets liberation. Realization of eternal peace or bliss is the goal of almost every school of Indian Philosophy. Here, we must know that Ānanda is of three types—Viṣayānanda, Vidyānanda and Brahmānanda. Viṣayānanda is momentary pleasure, which arises out of the contact of the mind with external objects. It has a difference in degrees. Vidyānanda is the pleasure that we derive from the feeling that “I have achieved all that was to be achieved”. It is still of the form of a mental mode. Brahmānanda is eternal bliss, which is discovered when avidyā is annihilated by akhandākāra mental mode. It is beyond mind and its modifications. The views of the Bhagavadgītā, Upaniṣad, and the elementary texts written by the proponents of the philosophy of non-dualism expound that the way to achieve the state of bliss is by inculcating the attitude of absolute detachment which, when achieved, makes a short work of our ignorance about Brahman. The paper tries to discuss all these issues and the Bliss aspect of Brahman with relevant references. It would be a success if it clarifies the different aspects of Ānanda and creates genuine interest in the researchers to further study the references for deeper understanding of bliss aspect of Brahman. (shrink)

This study is to investigate conflict rate and job satisfaction among staffs in the public organizations in Rafsanjan Township in the Islamic republic of Iran. In this study, staffs personality, laws and guide directions, staffs needs, communications and job satisfaction is investigated by examining the staffs’ salary, job nature, supervisor and salary of staffs’ colleagues and their promotion. This was a quantitative study. All data of this study have been collected by using questioner. All data of this study have been (...) analyzed quantitatively by using the SPSS software. Statistical society of the study was people who have worked in the public organizations in Rafsanjan Township. This study has chosen 385 staffs and has distributed two types of questionnaires namely job satisfaction and conflict questioners among them randomly. Finally, this study has concluded that 1. There is a reciprocal relationship between conflict rate and job satisfaction. 2. There is a negative relationship between conflict rate and payments. 3. There is a reciprocal relationship between conflict rate and job nature. 4. There is a negative relationship between conflict rate and supervision style. 5. There is a negative relationship between conflict rate and colleagues. 6. There is a reciprocal relationship between conflict rate and promotion opportunity. (shrink)

This paper examines the relationship between CEO incentives and strong and weak corporate social performance. Using the KLD database we find that incentives have no significant relationship with strong social performance. Salary and long-term incentives have a positive association with weak social performance.

In this article, the main definitions and differentiation concepts of neutrosophic fuzzy environment will be reviewed. This article will introduce an analytical methodology for solving the second-order linear ordinary differential problem with neutrosophic fuzzy boundary values, this analysis will be under generalized Hukuhara differentiability to show the analytical solutions from a different point of view for the uncertain system, some of these solutions may be decreasing in uncertainty or maybe reflecting the behavior of some real-world systems better. Some applications and (...) numeral examples will be solved to show the behavior of the solution. (shrink)